Hazard Team
by CrappyIceFruit
Summary: Black Mesa has been rebuilt. New battles are fought. Guardians are needed.
1. Prologue

Authors' Notes: Well, my first story. I'm only a young kid from Estonia so don't expect much. I needed to do something like this since I'm a "born Half-Life fan". Enjoy!

* * *

A small group of men were walking in a corridor in the Anomalous Materials lab of the Black Mesa research facility. Their steps echoed from the walls of the long corridor.

The group consisted of about 10 men, and their objective was to transport a certain crystal from the Anomalous Materials lab D to Sector G's Laser Chamber, where it will be incinerated.

The crystal was not exactly a usual crystal, it was actually a Xenian crystal, brought from the border-world Xen itself. It was the last Xenian crystal in Black Mesa, all the others had been destroyed, because of the events that had occurred in the previous years. "Why had it not been destroyed?", you ask. The answer is simple, in later research it was discovered that the crystal is made of pure diamond.

After discovering that, it was held in the lab for many other researches, for the crystal was worth millions of dollars. Of course, Black Mesa Administration could not allow a single thing from Xen, living or not, to be kept in Black Mesa. For that reason, this group of men had to transport this crystal to an inciniration chamber. The men arrived in the AM lab D, where the crystal was kept, and started to carry it to the chamber.

To get to the chamber, they had to use a tram deep underground in the Anomalous Materials lab. Soon, the men reached the tram station, and they stepped in the tram, while carrying the crystal in an air-tight box between their hands.

The beginning of the ride went well, but later in the ride, they discovered, that the tram is broken, and that it doesn't hatch correctly to the tram lines. Of course, they took their radio to tell that to maintenance, but they discovered, that they were too deep underground for the radio to work.

There was no way to stop the tram, because it was programmed to drive by itself, without any driver. As the tram started to take speed, it started to detach from the tramlines. and after reaching it's maximum speed, it detached and crushed itself against the wall, killing all aboard.

The crystal's box broke, and the crystal flew out. Now, if there would have been a person there at the same time, he or she would have noticed, that the crystal started to let out some sort of gas.

* * *

A few days later, the Hazard Team had a free day and spent their time in their dormitories. For one of them, free time meant reading, for one, watching televison, and for two, hanging around in Sector C of Black Mesa. The two, of course, were Johan and Rainer.

Behind them was a month of hard physical training in the desert of Texas county, and they were all glad it was over. A month of hard training wasn't exactly easy to them and after training, their bones and joints ached a lot. Johan and Rainer had recovered a bit, and now used their free time

to see what had happened in Black Mesa during their training. They both had grown, compared to their previous year in Black Mesa, as their puberty had started, and last year's events had made them more serious and grown-up. They went to Dr. Isaac Kleiner, their hirer, trainer, organizer and

one of their now closest friends in Black Mesa, who was also the second most important man in the Anomalous Materials lab (and maybe even in the whole Sector C). The boys had not seen him for a month, for Dr. Kleiner did not oversee their training.

The boys went to the tram-station to drive from their dormitories to the Anomalous Materials lab, which were both in Sector C. When they arrived in the lab, they saw that Barney, their favorite security guard in Black Mesa, was guarding the labs airlock that day.

" Hey boys!" shouted Barney, "your finally back!"

"Hey!" answered the boys. "We had a sandstorm and we had to wait a few days longer in the training camp," said Johan.

"Yeah, I heard of the sandstorm. Man, Doc sure was mad when he heard of the sandstorm. He said there's an urgent mission for you. Of course, nothing like your last mission, hehe."

" Oh really? He hasn't told us anything yet, we thought we'll have a free day. We were just about to go visit him though."

"Maybe he sent his message after we left," thought Rainer.

And indeed, as soon as Rainer had said that, a new tram cart appeared from the entrance of the lab's tram-station, and in it was the rest of the Hazard Team, the girls, Nele and Mia-Leena.

After they had exchanged greetings, Barney opened the airlock to the labs, and the hazard Team stepped in.

"Where did you even get to know that Doc has given us a new mission?" asked Nele as soon as the airlock had closed.

"Actually we wanted to visit Doc to get to know news about what has happened in Black Mesa in the meantime, so when we got here, Barney told us of our new mission," answered Johan.

"Barney didn't know what the mission was about?" asked Mia-Leena.

"Don't know. The only thing Barney said was that it's not gonna be like our previous missions," said Rainer, "and I think I know what missions he was talking about," he added with a small smirk on his face.

The other door of the airlock opened and they stepped in the laboratory. They greeted a few security guards in the security room, and one of them told them that Dr. Kleiner is waiting them in his office. Many scientists greeted them on the way there.

"It couldn't be another mission with aliens, right?" said Mia, " The last Xen crystal, the one made of diamond, was destroyed during our training and Doc assured us that the Xen creatures they are holding for research aren't in any way in contact with the powerful creatures of the Xen planet itself. He also told us that there wasn't anybody left on Earth from Race X too."

"Yes, it should be like that," said Nele.

When they arrived at Dr. Kleiners office, they saw that he wasn't alone, The administator of Black Mesa, Dr. Breen was with him and they were discussing something. The Hazard Team did not want to go in there with the administrator, so they waited behind the door of the office.

Dr. Breen left soon, and the Hazard Team went in the office. Dr. Kleiner was like always, mostly happy, glasses skewed, and very clumsy. During the past years, the Hazard Team had started to like Doctor Kleiner a lot, as he was now both a mentor, but also a helper, who would always try to help the Team if they needed it.

"Oh, hello there, boys and girls! I see you got my message," greeted Kleiner, "How was your training?"

"It was hard, but it was fun to see how much we had improved from our last stamina training," said Rainer and the the other 3 nodded.

"I see. Well, you needed that training, if I remember correctly, your last stamina training was before that incident with the Race X last year, wasn't it? Anyway, we aren't here to discuss of your training. I have a new important mission for you."

But before he could say anything else, Mia asked: " I certainly hope it does not involve any Race X or a certain Xen invasion?"

"No no, of course not, there's no point to be afraid of that. I'll give you a small briefing. You remember that, before you went to training, I told you that the last Xen crystal would be destroyed during the last day of your training? Well, it didn't go as expected, we are not completely sure if it was an accident or not, but the tram the transporters used to carry the crystal formm the Anomalous Materials lab to the Inciniration Chamber in sector G, derailed and the crash killed all aboard."

"But the crystal, you brought it to the Inciniration Chamber with other people, didn't you?" asked Johan this time.

"Well, it didn't go as easy as that. The team we sent there, when they made it to the crash site, they saw that the crystal wasn't there, it was gone."

"Gone? But how could it be?" asked Rainer.

"You do know that the crystal was made of pure diamond, don't you? We suspect that it was stolen by a group of humans, possibly some kind of terrorists or Black ops. The most logical possibility is that it was some kind of former Soldier or Black ops, who knew about Black Mesa, although I have no idea, how anyone could have gotten into Black Mesa _and _known about the crystal and its composition

But that is your mission. The crystal might still be in Black Mesa, and your mission is to find out what has happened to it and where it is. Of course, small searches have been made of the nearby labs and unused facilities, and the exits of Black mesa are now heavily guarded, but we haven't found anything yet. I suggest you start searching today, I will give you a few hours to get ready and get your Hazard Suits, and then I will send somebody to escort you to the crash site. You will begin your searching there. Barney will bring you your equipment soon. Remember, this is a very, very important mission, this crystal must not get out of Black Mesa nor any of the thieves. Any questions?"

"No!"


	2. Chapter 1: A Bloody Mess

Author's notes: The first 'real' chapter for this fanfic. I wanted to address that the names of the main characters are Estonian (the language of the country where I live), since this story was first written in Estonian. I translated everything, but I kept the names. Hopefully I will somehow someday be able to tell you why their names are like that too.

* * *

A few hours later, in the dormitories of Sector C, the Hazard Team got their equipment and were now readying it. They did not use the equipment they would've used in gunfights, because it would make them more heavy. They agreed, that if they know there will be a confortation with arms, they would change equipment. In their standard equipment were, of course, the HEV (Hazardous EnVirorment) Suit, a few "batteries" , boxes, that could hold up to 20 power units (used for recharging HEV suits), a crowbar, 2 pistols ( Glock 18's), a combat knife, a grenade and a battery. The gunners, Johan and Nele, used the standard equipment, with the exception of Nele having 2 Berettas instead of Glocks. The gunners were specifically trained to handle arms and using them precisely and effectively. Johan was also the leader of the team. The medic of the team, Mia-Leena, had an equipment that consisted of a crowbar, Glock 18, a combat knife and instead of the grenade and extra pistol, 5 batteries.

Rainer's, the hacker's or engineer's equipment composed of a crowbar, a Desert Eagle 50, a combat knife and many hacking and engineering tools. They all also had some food and everything they needed to live in the older parts of Black Mesa.

Soon after readying the equipment, a security guard sent by Dr. Kleiner arrived to escort the Team to the crash site. The crash site looked almost the same as after the crash itself, for investigation purposes. Dr. Kleiner was waiting theme there, and they went to him.

"I see you are ready for your mission. Good. I've looked at the plans of this part of the old Anomalous Materials lab, there's only one real way out of this tram line. Its this bay door you see right there", he pointed with his hand to a large bay door a hundred meters away from the crash, " and it leads to some old hangars. There is also a security post before the hangars. If they have somehow gotten past the post, then there are many ways to leave the hangars. Most of them guide back to Sector C's used parts, but one of them in particular will end on the surface, it's the spot where Barney escaped 3 years ago. It's heavily guarded, but if the thieves have gotten in, than it should not be much harder to get out. The catacombs in the old parts of the AM labs are perfect places to set up a camp, although they are nearby to the modern parts of the labs. You must search these catacombs for any sign of the possible thieves or the crystal itself. The search team has searched everything to the hangars, but from there, they haven't.

I think you should go to the hangars and begin your search there, but you decide where you start searching. Here is a map of the Anomalous Materials lab for you. I must return to my work now. Good luck!"

----- ------ -----

At the same time, in the old Anomalous Materials lab, near the guard post, 2 men where sitting in a long dark corridor. They wore gas masks and one of them had an uniform somewhat similar to a Black Ops uniform. A big box was between them. One of them spoke to the other:

" Damn them, they didn't tell us how to get back past the guard post! They've doubled they're security and the whole bay door to the hangars is guarded! Something tells me this isn't right. The boss would've known that they will guard the bay door. What do you think, Hammond?"

"I dunno, I shouldn't have been assigned to this anyway, I was supposed to guard the camp with the rest of the team. It would've been great if Murdock would not have died in Los Angeles a week ago. He would've replaced me in this mission. Meh, at least I got this neat suit and equipment, hehe.

"Man, how can you even think of such things right now, we're about to be raced down by every moron security guard in this whole facilty has, and we'll have a lifetime in jail for infiltrating a goddamn top secret government facility and trying to steal a damn crystal worth of millions of dollars!"

"Hey, I'm just trying to be positive in this fucking mess. Hmm, what do you think, maybe we should uh... both take a small piece of this crystal, hide it in our bags and sneak past the guard without that crystal. We will go straight to the surface, take a car and get out! We'll let the boss and those other idiots be there. If they want, they can get the rest of the crystal. What d'ya think?"

"You think that would work? That would be great, there's no way we can get past the guards with that huge crystal, but without it, I guess it would be possible,we'll just do it like we did when we came here."

"Yeah, the best time to do it would be now, they're changing guards in 20 minutes, lets try to brake some pieces from this crystal, I found this crowbar from one of the decomissioned labs, let's try to use it."

"Ok man, let's do it."

The man with the Black ops suit, Hammond, opened the box of the crystal and the turned the box around, so the crystal fell on the floor. Again, it started let out some sort of gas. Hammond raised the crowbar and hit the crystal with a strong blow. When they both looked what had happened to the crystal, they saw it was completely intact, without a s i n g l e scratch. They were both astonished and they stretched their hands to touch the spot where Hammond had hit it to find any signs of the hit.

As soon as they both had touched the crystal, they felt huge pain in their body and after a second everything went dark and both men fell on the floor before they could even make a sound.

* * *

The Hazard Team stepped trough the huge bay door that lead to the older parts of the Anomalous Materials labs. Johan looking at the map, they started moving towards the guard post. Johan pointed out to the rest of the team that this part of the old labs and the hangars were very near to the to modern part of the labs, where they kept living and dead Xen creatures.

"Shall we go towards the hangar and check out the few desolated labs which will get in our way anyway?" he asked.

The rest of the Hazard Team nodded.

"I don't really think that those so-thought stealers could have come from here, because I don't think it's possible to get trough without those guards from the outpost noticing them, especially if they're with that crystal," said Nele.

"Yeah, that _would _be impossible," said Mia, "OK, lets look inside this desolated lab. O hope that retinal-scanner still works," and she stepped to a a small machine near the door of the lab. Suffice to say, their status in Black Mesa allowed them to get into most of Black Mesa's parts, their eyes and hands would grant access to almost everywhere, it was also needful in some of their missions. The retinal scanner scanned Mia-Leena's eyes and the door of the lab opened very slowly.

They stepped into a big laboratory. At first look, it seemed completely empty, but after more careful looking, they found a body under a desk. The body was old, and Mia-Leena as a medic made a few tests on the body, and found out it was at least 2 years old.

"This is probably from the second Xen invasion, maybe from the first. Certainly not from this year or the last year. It seems the Xen creatures or soldiers got to this lab too."

And indeed, after more careful looking they discovered many signs of fighting and scratching-sings on the walls.

"This place here has been despoiled by zombies, these scratch-marks come from the long claws of the zombies and I think this body has been eaten , " said Johan.

"Yeah, it seems so. We shouldn't hang around too long in any of these laboratories. Let's check the other labs too, shall we?" asked Mia-Leena from the rest of the team.

"OK."

They stepped out of that lab and proceeded on to the rest of the dismissed labs of the AM lab. The labs were like a maze, although there weren't many, there were many different corridors that lead to them, and many labs could only be accessed via other labs. The Hazard Team had to look through all of them just make sure there's no sign of anyone there.

The labs had many signs of attacking and struggle inside, just like the first lab did. Many areas of Black mesa were abandoned during the years of Xen invasions, and that area was one of them. Soon, they only had one lab left to check. When they arrived near the door of the lab, they saw that the door was broken, and it seemed as if it was ripped open. The retinal scanner was also broken, probably because of the door not responding to it. They stepped into the lab through the broken door.

It was a very large lab with many doors on each side of the wall. The doors lead to other rooms. These were once the offices of important Black Mesa personnel. The name tags of the personnel were on the offices, and some names were even familiar to the Hazard Team. Some offices still had the corpses of former owners inside, and it was a gruesome image.

The Hazard Team was about to leave, when they heard a quiet screaming sound from one of the offices. They all turned around and went to that office. It was one of the offices, which had a body in it. They stood by the door, and saw that the body was moving. They were all astonished and couldn't even take out their guns. Slowly, the body fell from its chair to the floor, and they saw that behind it was something, something that looked like a body but moved like a living person.

"Fresh...fresh.. meat! FRESH MEAT!" it screamed and it leaped towards the Hazard Team, who had finally taken out their guns and began to shoot it. It leaped towards Mia-Leena and threw her down. It punched her for a moment and then jumped at Rainer, but before it could do that, Johan and Nele managed to shoot one of its arms off. It screamed loudly and jumped to the ventilation shafts of the ceiling. The monster crawled away inside the ventilation shafts, screaming whilst moving.

"The _f u c k_ was that?!?" asked Rainer, while breathing loudly.

"How the hell should we know? Anyway, we should warn Doc of this right now, I'm going to send him a message with my own radio," and while Johan tried to send the message, Nele and Mia-Leena discussed what the monster could have been.

"It looked almost like an ordinary headcrab-zombie, only it didn't have a headcrab, and it's body was less deformed too. How are you Mia? How much suit-energy did you lose?" asked Nele.

"Ah, it's nothing, I lost 10. I remember that the ordinary zombie hit a lot stronger. Actually it might have not even been a Xen-controlled creature. It could have been something completely different." thought Mia-Leena.

"Well, I've never seen a zombie speak," said Rainer in between.

"Well, anyway, we have to show this to Kleiner and the others. Maybe they know something. Hey, Johan, did you get the message sent?" asked Nele when Johan came back from the corner of the room.

"No, we're too deep underground to send messages, come, we'll run to the guard-post, there are certainly better radios over there. The post is right here."

They ran towards the guard-post, at the same time thinking about that creature they had seen. Luckily they all had a camera installed in their suit, so they had the possibility to show that creature to Dr. Kleiner and other important members of the lab. They all also thought the same thing: Did that "zombie" have anything to do with the crystal?

In a few minutes they approached the post, which was in a 2-foor room near a bay door that lead to some old hangars. The Hazard Team stepped trough the door of the post. The site they saw when they stepped in was horrifying and they gasped air: the whole floor was filled with blood and about 4 bodies were lying on the floor. The second floor looked almost the same, all the guards were dead. They took out their guns and searched the post for anyone living, or anyone that could have done this.

Their searches were canceled by a sound coming from the second floor. They were spooked by that sound, but after a moment they understood it came from a radio, and they all ran upstairs.

"AM Lab Security Post 53, come in, this is the central Security Station of Sector C, we are performing the casual check before nighttime, come in."

Johan took the radio and responded: "This is Hazard Leader speaking. Something.. terrible... has happened here!"

* * *

"Terrible?! What do you mean, terrible?"

"Uh... Their all dead, the whole security post is dead! A monster has gotten loose in here, you must send help here immediately. The monster killed all the guards. I repeat, there's a monster on the loose, you must send help!"

"Roger, Hazard Leader, we have reported the authorities of Sector C's AM lab. Help is on the way. They also responded that you have to get out of there and report to AM lab administration. They need to know what the alien looked like, did you see it?"

" Yes, we did. We'll head to the labs immediately."

" Wait, did you say there were no survivors?"

" Yeah, there's no one alive here, it's a real massacre."

The Hazard Team left the post and walked towards the bay door that would lead them out of that place. They didn't talk at all, they were astonished by what they had seen. On the way they saw a security team run towards the security post.

Soon they reached the bay door and they saw a huge crowd. Many guards were holding the crowd away from the entrance to the old labs. Dr. Kleiner was standing near the a tram stop and he waved at the Team. The Hazard Team went to him.

"We must hurry, the administrator along with other important administration members is waiting for you. Let's get on this tram," and they stepped into the tram. The tram's door closed and the tram started moving towards the Black Mesa Administration areas.

" I understand this has been hard for you, seeing all those men dead and seeing yet another monster, but the Administrator is waiting and we can't let him wait. As you can probably understand what they're thinking, if there would be another invasion, we wouldn't still be ready. Of course it's probably just a monster who has lived in the old labs for a few years. Well, here we are, the Administration areas. Let's get off the tram. "

They stepped out of the tram and followed Dr. Kleiner to a large room with a lot of tables and chairs. The room was full of important Black Mesa personnel, and at one end of the room, a middle-aged man in a brown coat sat in front of a large table. It was the administrator of Black Mesa, Dr. Wallace Breen. The administrator stood up and told everybody to be quiet and sit down.

" Finally, the Hazard Team has arrived. I'm afraid you'll have to tell us everything about the thing you saw. It is most important that we find it and kill it before it can do any harm to the facility. You may sit down. "

The Hazard Team told what they had seen. They told them everything they knew about the creature, how it behaved and most importantly the fact that it spoke English. After that the administrator and other important Black Mesa members asked them many questions.

The Hazard Team left the room 3 hours later, completely tired. They were tired from telling the same thing all-over again many times and they were tired from answering all the questions. The important personnel also had a debate that lasted for about an hour. They were told to head to their dormitories and have a rest. The rest of their day was free, but it was already 9 p.m. , so they wanted to go to sleep as soon as possible. They were allowed to store their equipment in their rooms, because the next day they had to join the search party in order to find and eliminate the monster.

They took a tram to their dormitories and after 10 minutes had passed they reached their dormitories. They took off their Hazard Suits and equipment and placed it in their storage room. They placed their firefight equipment on the suit, because they agreed that they will probably need it the next day. Their firefight equipment consisted of almost the same things as in their normal equipment, except the knifes had been removed and also each Team member got 3 more weapons. The gunners got an M4 Carbine rifle and a more advanced and miniature Tau Cannon ( with a small amount of depleted uranium). For the third weapon, Johan used a shotgun (Spas 12), while Nele used a sniper rifle (the M40A1). The medic, Mia-Leena used and MP5 instead of an M4 Carbine, a Gluon gun (and for emergency situations a Gluon bomb) and a crossbow. Rainer also had an MP5, but instead of the Tau or Gluon cannon, an RPG and 3 rockets. He had the shotgun for the third weapon, and also a Gluon bomb.

They washed themselves, made their beds and prepared to go to sleep.

" Wow, this sure was a long day," said Nele while going to bed.

" Yeah, seeing this... _thing _certainly wasn't a good surprise. I _thought_ we won't have to deal with such things here," thought Mia-Leena.

" And this thing is something different," said Rainer.

" Yeah, but what can we do. We have to sleep for tomorrow, maybe we'll find out what creature that was too," thought Johan.

They talked for a little while, and then wished goodnight and went to bed.


End file.
